


Divided We Fall

by the_random_writer



Series: Separated Twins [2]
Category: Bourne (Movies), RED (Movies), The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Genre: Blackmail, Brothers, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Crossover, FSB, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Gen, KGB, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 20:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4719023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A crossover where William Cooper from 'RED' and Kirill from 'The Bourne Supremacy' are identical twins.</p><p> Born in Berlin to an American mother and a Russian father, the twins were separated at the age of ten by their parents' divorce. William went to the United States with their mother, while Kirill went to the Soviet Union with their father.</p><p>This installment tells the story behind the actual separation.</p><p>Takes place in late July 1982 and early November 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divided We Fall

Alexander stood at the window, absorbing the warmth of the midsummer sun, watching his twin, ten-year-old sons playing in the garden below. Probably another round of Cops and Robbers. Or perhaps it was Cowboys and Indians today. He could never tell, and their preferences seemed to change as quickly and frequently as the weather. Whatever they were playing, it was something loud and alarmingly violent—the kind of game both boys adored but that drove the ground floor neighbour insane.

He sighed in sympathy for his children's plight. They didn't know it, but their happy, healthy, sheltered lives were about to be ripped in two. Unless the _komitet_ in Moscow changed its mind at the eleventh hour, this would be the last game of Cops and Robbers the two of them ever played.

In the living room behind him, his wife Rebecca sat on the edge of the couch, her elbows resting on her knees, her long hair falling across her face, crying quietly into her hands.

"Rebecca, please," he implored as he turned into the room. "I know this is very hard for you, but we are running out of time. You have already had several days to come to terms with this, and we must make our decision tonight. You know as well as I do that we cannot leave it until the morning."

She choked back another sob. "For the love of God, Shura, would you _please_ just think about what you're suggesting here?" she asked, angrily wiping away her tears. "You know how much the boys hate not being together. I can't even keep one of them home sick from school for the day without the other one complaining about it. And now you want to separate them _permanently_? Force them to live thousands of miles apart, with no easy way to stay in touch, and not see or speak to each other for at least the next ten years? Maybe even longer, depending on how the Cold War develops? Don't you understand how much damage that would do to them? They'll be _devastated."_

Alexander sighed again. He'd expected this, and his answer was primed. "It will no doubt be hard on them at first," he conceded, "but they are only ten years old, and in my experience, young children adjust to change extremely quickly. I am quite sure that a year or so from now, once they have made some new friends and settled into their new lives, they will barely remember each other."

He said the words with confidence, but he knew they were a pack of lies. He knew only too well that William and Kirill would never forget they had a brother. Not if his own childhood memories were anything to go by. Even after thirty years, he still remembered everything about his own sister, Tatiana. Especially the day of her death. And she had only been a 'normal' sibling—younger than him by almost four years—not an identical twin.

"I'm sorry, Shura, but I can't do this," Rebecca declared, clenching her fingers into fists. "I know what you want, and I know what I agreed to the other night, but I've changed my mind. I won't make that kind of decision, and not just because of what it would mean for the boys. For what it would mean for me as well. I'm their _mother_ , for God's sake. I gave birth to them, and I've been here for them every single day of their lives. They're not puppies, or a set of books. You can't expect me to choose between them, to keep the one I like the most and give the other one away. That's not what being a parent means. Or at least, not what it means for me. You obviously have a different view."

He responded with another sigh, louder this time and tinged with frustration. "Rebecca, we have already discussed the matter several times. I thought it was settled, and I do not understand why you are bringing it up all over again. I must return to Moscow tomorrow to deal with some family problems, and I would like to take one of the children with me. I am a fair man, so I do not expect to keep both of our sons, but I will not allow you to keep both of them either," he told her in a frigid tone. "You may be their mother, but I am their father, and I have also been here for them every single day of their lives, so I have _just_ as many rights as you. Do not make the mistake of assuming your feelings are somehow better or more important than mine, just because you are an American woman. My opinions _are_ different from yours, but that does not automatically mean they are wrong."

He heard a shout of pain from the garden and turned to the window to check on the twins. William was kneeling on Kirill's chest, punching his brother in the head, but this was nothing out of the norm. As long as they weren't spilling blood or breaking bones, he would leave them to their violent exertions. Boys should be allowed to be boys, the miserable ground floor neighbour be damned.

He turned to his wife again. "Rivka, you know I would prefer to settle this amicably, between the two of us, without involving the judges or lawyers," he reminded her. "If you insist on challenging what I think is a perfectly reasonable request, go right ahead. Call in every judge and lawyer in the whole damn city if you think it will help. We both know you would get what you want, since the matter would never be resolved before I am due to leave. But you would not get what you want for long, because there are people _I_ can call as well," he said, tapping on his chest with his thumb. "People who would be very interested to know what you did on the road to Wittenberg last year."

He heard her sudden intake of breath and knew his warning had been received. Good. Now she would understand just how far he was willing to go to get what _he_ wanted, which was to quietly end their ten-year marriage and divide custody of their sons. She had previously agreed to his requests, but now that the shock of his news was wearing off and reality was setting in, she was obviously suffering from buyer's remorse and trying to find a way to keep both boys. Not that he could really blame her. She _was_ their mother, after all, and what mother worth a damn willingly turned her back on her child?

So he was letting her know, loud and clear, that if she attempted to bring in the lawyers, he would bring in the German police. Call them before he got on the train, tell them all about her little 'accident' last November. He had helped her to cover it up, but she had caused it, so she was the one the police would arrest. She would lose everything, including her beloved sons. And as he would by then be gone from the country, the boys would end up in the care of the state. The German authorities might allow them to go the States to live with her parents or younger sister, but then again, they might not. The twins spoke German just as much as English or Russian, and West Berlin was the only home the two of them had ever known. They'd only met Rebecca's parents twice, and had never met their aunt at all. Would they tolerate being sent away to live in a country they'd never seen with relatives they barely knew? William might, but Kirill absolutely wouldn't. And if Kirill wouldn't budge, then neither would his older brother.

Mother of God. What a deeply unpleasant business this was. How much easier his week would have been if he could have tried the usual solution and simply vanished during the night, taking one or both of the children with him. But Rebecca would have gone to the authorities to report their disappearance, and a great many questions would have been asked. Questions with alarming and inconvenient answers. Questions that would cause serious problems not only for him, but also for some of his fellow agents who hadn't been recalled to Moscow and whose covers therefore had to remain in place. Control had made it abundantly clear his exit should be totally clean, which meant leaving the country with Rebecca's full knowledge and consent. No missing person reports, no child abduction alerts. Nothing to raise the slightest suspicion about who or what he really was, even after he was gone.

"Rebecca, there is nothing left for us to discuss, and I am running out of patience as well as time," he warned. "You should be thankful I am at least willing to meet you halfway, instead of demanding to keep both boys. So please, make your decision now, or you will leave me no choice but to make it for you."

For several minutes she said nothing, but simply stared at the rug between her feet, breathing deeply in an attempt to control her runaway emotions, as she slowly made the hardest and most painful decision she'd ever faced in her life. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her, even if she mostly had herself to blame.

"William," she eventually whispered, squeezing her hazel eyes shut against another wave of tears. "I'll keep William."

The tension flooded out of his body as she told him what he wanted to hear. He could have made the decision himself to remove the risk it would go the wrong way, but he'd wanted Rebecca to bear the burden of settling their sons' fates. She wouldn't be able to go home to her family in the States and claim he'd given her no choice in the matter, and he would be able to tell his younger son that his mother had wanted his older brother instead of him. If that didn't persuade the boy to sever the apron strings and forget her, he didn't know what would.

Her choice made perfect sense, and they both knew it. William had always been much more Rebecca's son than his. He was a good child—kind and generous to a fault—but too loud, too bold, too brash, too _American_ for his father's liking. Kirill, for all that he had a monstrous temper when provoked, was smaller, quieter, more studious and somehow more Russian than his older brother.

His younger son was also a much better choice from the simple perspective of names. William bore the name of his Irish great-grandfather on his mother's side—a name with no equivalent in the Russian tongue—whereas Kirill bore the name of the venerable Orthodox saint whose feast day occurred on the day he and his brother were born.

Out of the two, it would definitely be much easier to mould Kirill into a proper, obedient Soviet son. The kind of son who might follow him into the KGB, and thereby found a new Orlov tradition of loyal service to the state.

A fourth sigh, this one full of remorse and regret. He couldn't believe his privileged life in West Berlin was finally coming to an end. Only four days before, everything had been happy and calm. Rebecca had found a new, part-time job teaching classes at the local college, and he'd received a letter from a publishing company in Bonn expressing interest in one of his books. Then came the phone call from Control, advising him that Moscow had cancelled his assignment with immediate effect, ordering him to return to the USSR by the end of the month, with or without his wife and sons. No apology, no explanation, no offer of assistance to move. Just a blunt, cold, officious command which he knew he could only obey. One of his KGB colleagues at the Rezidentura in East Berlin had previously warned him that this could happen at any time, but he'd naively assumed that after twelve years, his status as a deep-cover illegal was now more or less secure.

How very, very wrong he had been.

He'd asked Rebecca to come to Moscow with him, if only to keep the family together, but she had flatly refused his request, indicating her desire to return to the States instead. The prospect of losing her for good had caused him only minor distress. She was the mother of his children, so he cared about her in his own way, but the warmth in the marriage had always come more from her than from him, especially in recent years. He acknowledged now that he'd only married her for the sake of the boys, and to give himself an even more convincing cover, not because he'd fallen head over heels in love.

Even if he had, forcing her to move to Moscow with him would be nothing short of cruel. For all that she had a German mother and had made her home in West Berlin, she was still American born and bred. And she was an _artist_ , for God's sake. She'd spent most of the last three months painting a mural with a political theme on the gable end of a nearby building, and earned the regular part of her wages by teaching adults how to draw landscapes or naked men. She would never adapt to life in an authoritarian, communist state, no matter how hard she tried.

Besides, whatever feelings she had for him would no doubt evaporate completely once she discovered who and what he really was. She'd fallen in love with the Alexander Orlov who was a political dissident and a writer, not the Alexander Orlov who was an officer of the KGB. So in many ways, their separation was for the best.

That being said, he had no intention of so calmly walking away from his sons. If he had to return to the Soviet Union, he wanted at least one of the boys to go with him. Something to show for the eighteen, long years of his life he'd now given to the Communist cause.

"Then it is settled," he solemnly declared. "William will stay here in Berlin with you and Kirill will come to Moscow with me. I will inform Herr Becker when I see him tomorrow morning," he added, referring to his German lawyer. "He will handle the paperwork on my behalf." He was leaving Rebecca almost everything they owned, including the car and the contents of the rental apartment. It seemed only fair, given that he was instigating the separation, and it wasn't as if he could take any of it to Moscow with him. All he wanted were his personal belongings and a few items of special value, including his younger son.

A final sigh, his need to move on and be done. "My train to Moscow leaves at four o'clock tomorrow. Shall we explain the situation to the boys tonight?" he proposed. Better to do this quickly and cleanly instead of dragging it out to the bitter end.

But Rebecca had other ideas. "I can't do it tonight," she told him in a weary tone. "I need more time to think about what I'm going to say, especially to Kirill. You know as well as I do he's going to throw the mother of all tantrums, and I just can't deal with that right now. Let me have tonight with them and tell them in the morning instead. Please, Shura. For all our sakes." Her voice turned bitter and hard. "And what the hell does it matter anyway, how or when or where we tell them? It won't make any goddamn difference, will it?"

Alexander nodded but said nothing. She was correct, of course. It didn't matter, and it wouldn't make any difference. However and whenever they chose to do this, the end result would be the same. She and William would stay, while he and Kirill would leave. No amount of thinking or negotiating would now prevent the separation or make it any easier to bear. It was going to be a stressful and traumatic moment, especially for their younger, more emotional son. William would at least be staying in the apartment and the city he knew but Kirill's whole world was about to be turned upside down.

As Rebecca stepped out onto the balcony to call the boys in to wash up for dinner, Alexander went to their room to pack some of Kirill's belongings. Not a lot, mostly clothes, but also a few of his favourite toys and books. Nothing too American, or that was likely to be confiscated at the border. He made a point of throwing in a sketch pad and a pack of pens. Both boys had inherited their mother's artistic talents, but only Kirill had the focus and patience to sit down and actually draw. It would keep him occupied for hours once they were on the train.

Dinner was a tense and strained affair. William was his usual boisterous and chatty self, but Kirill, always more sensitive to other people's moods, was sullen and withdrawn. He picked reluctantly at his food and glanced furtively from one silent parent to the other, desperately trying to figure out what on earth was going on.

A few hours later, Rebecca took the boys to bed, and watched from the rocking chair in the corner as they gradually drifted off to sleep. Then she withdrew to the master bedroom across the hall, making a very obvious point of firmly locking the door behind her.

Alexander spent his last night of freedom in West Berlin tossing and turning under a blanket on the couch, trying to ignore the muffled sound of his soon-to-be ex-wife's sobs.

********************

He woke early the following morning to the sight of Kirill playing quietly on the living room rug with a set of his toy soldiers. The Russian set, he was pleased to see—similar to a collection he'd played with as a child himself. Another sign that he'd made the right choice.

He sat up and looked around the apartment; there was no sign of his wife or his older son. "Kiryusha, where are your mother and brother?" he asked, deliberately speaking in Russian. The boy would have no immediate use for his other languages where he was going. The sooner he adjusted to speaking and thinking only in his paternal tongue, the easier the upcoming transition would be. He could pick up his English and German again once he was in his teens.

Kirill looked up and smiled, pleased to see his father awake. "Mama said she was going to visit one of her friends from work," he explained. "She took Viko with her. I wanted to go as well, but she said I had to stay here to look after you. She left a letter for you," he added, pointing to an envelope taped to the door of the fridge.

Alexander rose from the couch, strode into the sunny kitchen, grabbed the letter and tore it open. But he already knew more or less what the hastily scribbled message contained.

_Shura,_

_William and I have gone out for the day._ _We will not return to the apartment before you and Kirill leave._ _Take whatever you need and go._

 _I'm sorry._ _I thought this would be easier on all of us, especially the boys._

 _Please be a good father to Kirill._ _When he asks about us, tell him we love him very much, and that he will see both of us again when he is older._

_Rebecca_

So there it was. _Fait accompli_. There was nothing for him to do now but gather his belongings together and make his way to the _Oberbaumbrücke_ to cross into East Berlin. First, he would go to the Rezidentura for a meeting with the station commander, and to collect their new travel permits and identity papers. From there, he would return to Moscow, to his old home, his old job and his old life.

If he could even remember what his old life was supposed to be.

He turned back to his younger son, who was still sitting quietly on the rug, waging an epic war in his head between the forces of darkness and light. He smiled softly. Unlike his more restless twin, Kirill had always been very good at keeping himself occupied, rarely bothering either parent with declarations of boredom or demands to be entertained. It was something he'd always appreciated about the boy, and which would no doubt be of use in the months to come, when he no longer had his older brother as his constant companion.

"Kiryusha, please go wash and brush your teeth, then change into the clothes that are hanging on your wardrobe door," he said. "You and I are going on a journey today. It will be very long, but also very exciting. I think you are going to enjoy it."

Kirill's face lit up in childish anticipation. He placed his soldiers back in their box, taking care not to bend or break the fragile guns, then scurried off towards his room.

********************

Kirill stood on the empty sidewalk, his hands jammed into his pockets, his collar turned up against the cold, staring up at the apartment on the second floor. All of the windows were dark, so either nobody was home or everyone had gone to bed. No doubt the latter, given the lateness of the hour.

The building was smaller than he remembered, but it was definitely the place he had called home for the first ten years of his life. Before the nightmarish trip to Moscow with his father in the summer of 1982. Before he lost _mamochka_ and William, and his childhood went completely to hell.

He glanced towards the park at the far end of the street, wondering if it still contained the musical clock and the statue of a standing bear. He flexed the muscles of his right arm, remembering the broken bones he had earned by falling from the bear's head. It had hurt like seven kinds of hell at the time, but it was still a happy memory in its own way. Happier than anything he remembered from Russia.

He blew out a sigh and mentally kicked himself in the balls. The apartment, the park, his father, mother and twin brother—all of these things were dead, buried and long gone. Why the hell was he standing here in the dark and the pissing rain, dwelling on memories of the past and matters he was powerless to change? He couldn't bring his family or the happiness of his childhood back, no matter how much he might wish it. His father had been dead for twenty years, and he wasn't sure he wanted to meet his mother again, even if she was still alive. He knew now that she hadn't given him up without a fight (contrary to his father's claims), but at the end of the day, she'd chosen his older brother over him, and that was still a source of anger and pain.

He could probably find William if he went looking for him, but what the hell was the point? His twin would be American, while he was Russian. The Cold War had been over for years, but their countries weren't exactly the warmest of friends. There was also the slightly alarming fact that he worked for the FSB, and sometimes threatened or murdered people for money. William was probably an accountant (or something equally normal and safe) and happily married with a house full of chubby, spoiled, American kids. What would the two of them have in common other than their parentage and their DNA, and what would they even say to each other after an absence of almost thirty years?

He'd long since learned the hard way that some painful family problems were best left well and truly alone. In his experience, trying to deal with them head on only made them much, much worse.

His phone vibrated under his hand, yanking him out of his maudlin thoughts. One short buzz, announcing the arrival of an incoming text. He wrangled the handset out of his pocket, read and then immediately deleted the note; Yuri Gretkov, confirming he was now in Berlin and waiting for him at the hotel.

He shoved the phone back into his pocket, pulled out his keys and his leather gloves and turned to walk towards his car. He had some people to kill, some files and a bag of money to steal and a rogue assassin to frame for murder.

Time to get back to work.


End file.
